For Advent: The Seven Capital Sins: Lust (Week 1)

The Seven Capital Sins: Lust (Week 1)

Fr. Michael gives advice on how to overcome the sin of lust in our lives. This is the first of a seven-part series on the Capital Sins.

by Fr. Michael Sliney, LC | Source: Catholic.net

My weekly message for the next seven weeks will be focused on the 7 Capital sins with some practical tips on how to conquer them in your daily lives. The first one is more of an issue for men and teenage boys, so the focus will be in that direction. I sincerely hope that this will be helpful.

#1 Lust

Definition: “Lust is a disordered desire for or an inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 2351)

A Winning Strategy for Inner Peace and Authenticity:

1. Sacraments and Prayer
- Lots of Eucharist and regular Confession (at least once a month): you cannot conquer these powerful passions without the help of God’s grace. The Eucharist fertilizes and nourishes both the will and the garden of virtues and the Sacramental Grace of Confession, like a good weed killer, attacks and weakens the weeds.
- Pray a Decade of the rosary every day for a greater purity. The Blessed Mother is the Queen of Purity and a powerful intercessor for us with Christ.

2. Internet/Media tips:
- Your mom/wife should receive a copy/history of all the sites that you visit during the day…keeps you honest and builds trust.
- Be realistic and get a tough filtering system, we need to protect ourselves. (Net Nanny, CyberSITTER, Familink, Safe Eyes, BSafe Online, CyberPatrol) http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/
- When you are tempted in this area, think of a good intention for which you can offer it up, perhaps a loved one in need or a sibling/son/daughter who may need extra graces.
- Go to where you need to go and then get out!
- Special care with images on video games, and content in movies and TV shows with inappropriate material…these have a huge psychological impact in creating disordered desires.

3. Control of Eyes: when associating with women, look into their eyes or face without getting distracted in other areas. Personally, it helps me to see and treat other women as I would my sister.

4. Control of Imagination: the devil is always stirring the pot with our memory and imagination and our thoughts need to be checked at the door. These are the inner battles of the soul which mean so much to God and truly forge our character.

5. Choose your friends well! A friend is someone who should inspire you with their example and not bring you down to a savage level of living. This is especially critical for teenagers.

6. Business trips
- Avoid travelling on the same plane, staying in the same hotel, or sharing a meal/drink with those female associates with whom you may have an unhealthy emotional attachment or a physical attraction. Always include a 3rd party if possible.
- Never to go to the hotel bar for dinner or drinks alone; order in room or be seated at the restaurant. Never have a meeting in a room, always secure a conference room at a hotel.
- Keep a busy and focused schedule, call into your wife every evening, and try to incorporate prayer and exercise into your free times. Daily physical exercise is very helpful!

7. Little acts of self-denial: taking less of the food you like, more of what you do not like; temperance and self-control in drinking alcohol; being especially kind to those who are disagreeable to you…punishing/controlling your passions in these areas form strong habits of self-control in your purity as well.

8. Attitude of selflessness! To be so focused on serving those around you that you do not have time for impure thoughts or actions.

9. Example. Those whom you love can perceive your authenticity when they look into your eyes,…think of them when it gets tough. They need this example!!

10. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” Intimacy with Christ is only possible for the pure of heart! There is nothing worse than feeling divided and far from God!

God bless,
Fr. Michael Sliney, LC

It’s actually the Seven Deadly Sins. The ones that are supposed to condemn you to hell.

Lust: being addicted to sex the way some people are addicted to drugs.

Greed (avarice): craving more money, possessions and power that you can use in one lifetime.

Wrath (anger): being perpetually pissed off and taking it out on the people around you, especially your family and closest friends. Being mad at the whole world, for no logical reason.

Gluttony: being addicted to food, and building your whole life around the pleasure of eating.

Sloth: Being very, very lazy. Like a 30-year-old man who lives in his parents’ house and has never had a job in his life. Spends his precious days sleeping, smoking weed and playing videogames. Will never have a girlfriend, because women don’t go for losers.

Pride (hubris): thinking that you are better than everybody else. That you are smarter, richer or prettier than everybody else, and therefore you have the right to tell them what to do.

Envy: hating others because they have more than you. Wishing bad luck upon them, because they got over and you didn’t. And this one is a soul-killer. Because your bitter jealousy hurts you much more than it hurts them.

It’s not easy for women, either! What was said above can person to a wife as well as a husband, and even top those who are single.

Each of us is called to chastity according to our state in life. Since this also includes impure thoughts, a person has to really work at keeping ideas, and sometimes people, out of their stream of consciousness.

A sense of humor sometimes helps here. So does having a “buddy” you can talk to who will help you get your mind off things: real friends who are fighting the same battle, and understand. And, no kidding, a couple of friends and I came up with an idea we called “The Toad Tank”: a list of men we would not want to be physically intimate with under any circumstances- public figures, no personal attacks. Hitler was our most-used amphibian, on such a multitude of levels, he could have qualified as a bull frog. Sounds strange, but it worked! We’d laugh, converse, discuss, solve the world’s problems, and it would pass. We helped one another, and God helpled us.

Call a friend; talk about anything that will get your mind off things. Go to Confession, and talk to the priest: tell him you’re trying your best and you need the Grace of the Sacrament to strengthen you. Don’t be embarrassed; the more grace you recieve, the more strength you will have to avoid sins of impurity.

The advice given in the article rings true for anyone trying to maintain chastity, whatever their state in life. Put a link to it and other faith sites in big icons on your desktop. And let us pray one for another!
God bless you and keep you in His care!

I suspect it is much more difficult for men

I think it must be, especially in a society that has gone so far from the kind of moral values God wishes we would choose.

The modes of dress and behavior of women in the media alone have degenerated throughout the years. There is no sense that the body and the intimate relationship between a man and a woman are at minimum private and, at their best, sacred and beautiful. Men are bombarded with visual temptation wherever they go.

I'm single, but wear a band on my ring finger, blessed by my pastor, as a symbol of chastity according to my state in life; as a sacramental, it is a great help and reminder to me.

St. Francis of Assisi, for example, threw himself into a patch of thorns to take his mind off impure thoughts. By today's standards that may sound extreme, and I'm not recommending it: nevertheless, it is a profoumd illustration of how the Saints treasured the chaste life and did whatever they could to maintain it.

God bless you!

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